


Scars

by jujubiest



Series: SPN One-Shots [21]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x20 I don't know her, M/M, Post-Canon, no beta-readers we die like my faith in television writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29049426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: Without the constant supernatural healing, Dean's body accumulate scars.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN One-Shots [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/177362
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	Scars

Dean accumulates scars, as the years go on.

First from hunting. A cut here that fades to a slightly pink line over time. A burn there, the skin too-smooth and shiny long after it heals. One large, angry-red and gnarled knot of scar tissue in the center of his back from his last hunt, the one that nearly did him in and left him with a pull and catch in his back that restricted his movement just enough that he couldn't hold a gun steady through the recoil, swing a blade with enough force for a clean kill. It also made it hard to sit in a car for long hours anymore.

The rest are homey scars, small and domestic and mostly not serious. Another burn, this one from a hot iron. A white line in the center of his palm from the slip of a knife in the kitchen. A warp in one fingernail where it got hit with a hammer and never grew back smooth. A slash across the forehead, stopping just short of his eye, where a tree branch caught him in the face.

He never had many scars, in his life before. Even with all the hunting, all the fights and injuries and near misses. He'd come back from Hell a clean slate at thirty and then accumulated only two scars in the ten years after, both long since faded. The scars he has now all arrived after the day they made god into one of us for good, the only stories to be written now in the hands of every human.

Dean's story is etched into his body by those scars, reminders of each near miss, each close call, every mistake. Reminders that he's just a man after all, and life is precious, and he needs to make the most of it.

Sometimes Cas runs his hands over them, at night when they're lying in bed together, drifting slowly toward sleep. He has scars now, too, and callouses, and gray peaking through in his hair, startling against the dark brown. But his hands linger over Dean's with something akin to reverence: a thumb stroking over the one on his palm, an open hand covering the one on his back. His fingertips trace the thin line on Dean's forehead so lightly it tickles, until Dean has to close his eyes and duck away, laughing softly.

"I could have healed these for you once," he says one night, voice wistful and laced with regret. His index finger traces the line of the scar from where it starts at Dean's hairline to the point just above his eye, over and over, making Dean's eyes too heavy to hold open. "I could have kept you whole, unmarked and free of pain."

Dean catches Cas's hand in his and brings it to his lips, presses a kiss to the knuckle of his ring finger, just below the narrow black band tattooed there.

"Sorry angel," he sighs against that hand. "You'll have to make do with broken, uglied up and achy."

Cas's lips are at his ear in an instant, warm breath on his cheek and hands in his hair.

"Never," he almost-whispers, voice so low Dean feels it more than hears it, like faraway thunder. "You have never been broken or ugly. I only wish I could help with the aches."

Dean rolls toward Cas so he can wrap both arms around him, ignoring the now-familiar sharp pain in his back. He holds onto his angel as though his life depends on it, as though they have either only seconds or the rest of their lives left to spend like this.

"You do help," he says into Cas's hair. "You do. Just bein' here. You gotta know that."

He isn't sure Cas does know, but the way he relaxes into Dean's arms feels like acceptance, if not quite belief. And Dean can keep telling him, keep saying it until it sinks in, until it's branded on Cas's heart like a handprint made of blood and grace.

Dean doesn't care about a few scars. What are they but proof that he's still here, still living this life he fought so hard to have? He considers them a bargain for everything he's gained.

The man he was at 30 had a perfect body and an unlined face, but inside he was riddled with holes. Empty spaces where love and home and hope should have been. Not a man at all, but an empty shell, waiting to be used and discarded.

Now he's less perfect. His knees ache and his back hurts, his hair is slowly shifting from gold to silver, his mistakes leave marks that don't just get wiped away. But inside? Inside the empty spaces have all becomes rooms, and each one holds another member of the family he's slowly built over the years.

And in the biggest room of all, the one where his heart would be, lives Cas.


End file.
